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Childhood memories: The NES years

I've been thinking of my childhood years in terms of gaming recently and I wanted to compile a list of games that stand out the most and what I remember spending hours upon hours on.

10. Ghostbusters II

9. Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout

8. Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers

7. Mega Man 2

6. Totally Rad

5. Super Mario Bros. 3

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

3. Duck Tales

2. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

1. Metroid

Looking back on this list, outside of a few games, the list is pretty much the run of the mill games for the NES. I had about 30 games for the NES before I got rid of it to make money for the N64 but these are the games that stand out the most.

NES was such an epic system it feels bad to only list 10, I'm looking at that and I can't believe I didn't write down Blaster Master, Batman, Ninja Turtles, Ice Hockey, Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior, Tecmo Super Bowl, Zanac, Super C etc. etc. etc.

I bought it on a trip to an outlet mall in Buffalo, never having heard of it before. I just liked the theme and figured a Capcom RPG (had there ever been such a thing before?) had to be rad. Turned out to be one of the best gaming purchases I ever made, though I find the fights to be interminably long today.

Megaman 2: Rented from the video game place I came in 2nd place at, got it for Christmas that year.
SMB2: Mom and Dad ordered it via UPS, was first kid on the block to have it wtf.
Ninja Gaiden 2: I used to call my ninja clones Bill and Ted.
Batman: Saw the movie at a drive through in Deep Creek, got the game after.
Journey to Silius: Got this for like $5 from some dept store.
Castlevania 2: My parents watched Twins the night I got this. I was so mad, it was the only tv in the house then.
1943: Played the HELL out of this game.
Milon's Secret Castle: No lie, my mom's favorite game.

Yeah, I remember the Amiga version being the one to get but I didn't have one. Still remember the trick you had to use to beat the dragon at the end, how that item was useless the whole way through the game until the very end. I wish that EA was still around instead of the one we ended up with.

Journey to Silius was awesome, I remember renting that and the animation and music (especially the length of the songs) blew my mind.

I sold off a ton of NES games five years ago and gave my old system to a friend who wanted to mod it into a harddrive. Couldn't part with these though, even though they can be emulated and the carts may never see a NES again, they were some of the best memories I had as a kid.

Contra: My very first NES game besides Super Mario Bros! My parents were convinced it had something to do with Iran-Contra, so I had to play it at a friend's house, haha. We could make it to the snow level without taking a hit, no problem.
River City Ransom: Rented on a lark from the local strip mall in Ft. Lauderdale, subsequently rented many, many more times. My favorite game I have never owned a copy of, easily.
Shatterhand: For some reason this was a big one. One of the best platformers in which dudes get punched!
Super Mario Bros 2: Plucking a rocket ship out of the ground is still amazing.
Batman: Everything about this game is gold.
Ghostbusters: I hate this game, but have spent countless hours playing it! It's just this side of abstract, something about that was really compelling I guess. Fuck those stairs, seriously.
G.I. Joe: Such a good game! Leveling up all the characters and digging through those last few Cobra base levels was a good time.
Mega Man 3: I like it slightly more than 2. It's all about making up lyrics to Snake Man's theme.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I always liked how they had the red masks from the comics on the box art. Sheer hatred for those water levels, even though we figured 'em out after a while.
Abadox: This was the sickest damn thing for a long while, but we still played the hell out of it; all intestines and skinned cows and what-not.